IF IT were so easy to identify a successful head coach, to select one, to hire one, then you wouldn’t have teams like the Jets who have wandered in the wilderness for 38 years (and counting), endlessly searching for the New Weeb. You wouldn’t have franchises like the Arizona Cardinals, who’ve won exactly one playoff game since the Truman Administration.

If Eric Mangini is successful as a head football coach, it will be because of his work ethic, because of his intelligence, because of his ability to master the same late-game, clockmanagement mathematics that always flummoxed his predecessor.

It will be because he develops a knack for making halftime adjustments, for rallying injured players and motivating underachieving ones, for knowing when to go for it on fourth down and when to kick it away, for when to show the guts of a riverboat gambler and when to be more conservative than the John Birch Society.

It will not be because he once worked for Bill Belichick.

It will not be because he once worked for Bill Parcells.

It will not be because his pedigree includes two of the most impressive coaching trees in the recent history of the NFL. It would be wonderful if it really was that simple, of course. It would be splendid if you could guarantee success thanks to a man’s resume, if you could assure yourself playoff berths and championships merely by going by a coach’s references.

“You can put yourself in position to get yourself a good job, and you can learn all there is to learn about how to win, and you can try and make yourself a carbon copy of the guy you used to work for, but that isn’t worth a thing. Either you’re good enough to be a head coach in the National Football League or you’re not.” Those words were spoken in 1991 by a man who was a can’t-miss root off a prosperous coaching tree, a man whose profile suggested greatness, whose background strongly backed glory when he stepped out on his own. His name was Bill Belichick. And it’s worth remembering that before he became a Hall of Fame lock as a head coach – giving a platinum-plated legacy to the Bill Parcells Coaching Tree – he spent some time as something else.

An abject failure. Booed in Cleveland. Run out of town five steps ahead of the departing Browns, in fact. Eighteen games into his second stint as a coach, with the Patriots, Belichick’s wonloss record stood at 41-57. He was one more losing season away from disappearing into the miasma of career assistant coaches; now he’s going to be posing for a bust in Canton one of these days.

Belichick failed early in his career despite being the man most closely linked to Parcells’ successes with the Giants. He failed for any number of reasons, but he learned from every one of those failures. His success is his success. Parcells, at this point, is just a guy he used to work for.

If coaching trees were such a certain avenue to success, then the esteemed coaching tree that Mike Krzyzewski has built at Duke wouldn’t have had the massacre of a year it had last year, when three ex-K coaches – David Henderson, Quin Snyder and Tim O’Toole – wouldn’t have gotten fired within weeks of each other last winter. If you want to credit Bill Walsh for spawning George Seifert and Mike Holmgren – both of whom won Super Bowls on their own – then you probably also need to blame him for Sam Wyche and Paul Hackett and Dennis Green.

There is every indication that the Jets made a wise decision handing the coaching reigns to Mangini, who is young, energetic, committed, and smart, which are four useful traits to have when you’re starting out on a coaching career. He has his players’ attention. He has the full and uncompromising support of the Jets’ fan base, who grew weary of Herm Edwards’ soft-sell approach. These are the things that will help him this year, as he works his way through the inevitable dueling minefields of growing pains and an undermanned roster.

Being a branch of the most impressive coaching tree in the sport may have landed him on the doorstep at Weeb Ewbank Hall. Being his own man is what’ll keep him there.

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If at first…

Eric Mangini’s two mentors had tough times in their rookie seasons as head coaches: